Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment

1. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood

2. WF3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment • What is the health of the meteorological monitoring program at WF3? • What should a meteorological monitoring program at a nuclear power facility consist of? • At WF3, are we doing enough? Are we doing too much? Gregory Hood

3. Unique situation at WF3 • Frequently subpoenaed for our meteorological data. • Many chemical plants and refineries are located in the vicinity • Dupont, Shell, Oxidental, Dow, & more. • We can be supplying data for either plaintiffs or defendants. • Sometimes data is requested directly from a law firm (no subpoena). Gregory Hood

4. Environmental Engineer / Specialist WF3 Responsibilities • Met data validation and QC. • Annual met program report. • Dispersion & deposition factors • Many non-meteorological duties: • NPDES permitting & reporting • Air Permitting & reporting • Hazardous waste & Industrial Waste • Environmental reviews and evaluations • etc., etc. Gregory Hood

5. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood

6. Assessment Questions • More NRC scrutiny of REMP locations sited with meteorological considerations • Is the environmental specialist devoting enough time to the meteorological monitoring program? Gregory Hood

7. Assessment Process at WF3 & Entergy Nuclear – South • Yearly, assessment topics are submitted to site and corporate assessment groups • This year was time for the meteorological monitoring program • important to me because of subpoenas • Important to my boss because he got a subpoena when I was out of town Gregory Hood

8. General Issues • Nuclear industry trend, reduce costs • Staffing levels have gone down. • The meteorological monitoring program may not be getting the detailed technical assessments managers think is occurring by the routine QA audits and NRC inspections. Gregory Hood

9. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood

10. Audit scope: • The assessment should include a check of compliance with current procedures and requirements • Additionally, we wanted a critical look at the entire program • Is everything that should be getting done, being done? • QA audits and NRC inspections can give false sense of security • No problems or deficiencies are thought to exist. Gregory Hood

11. WF3’s Meteorological monitoring program. • 1985 to 1991, WF3 did not collect digital met data. • Data was transformed into digital data by sending strip charts to a vendor. • Strip charts were sent in every 4 weeks. • Problems in the data/strip charts would frequently cause large periods of data loss. • Corrective actions recommended by the vendor lagged far behind when the problems appeared. Gregory Hood

12. WF3 project to provide on-site digital data • First program (1991): • Writing one minute met data to a 9-track tape off of the Plant Monitoring Computer (PMC). • The tape was given to Health Physics Department and read into a database on an RS/6000. • A software program was run that calculated and created hourly averaged met data records. Gregory Hood

13. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood

14. WF3 project to provide on-site digital data (cont’d) • Finally, the best set of parameters to use was created consisting of the bare basic necessities: • 10m WS • 10m WD • delta-temp • This was sufficient data to determine X/Q & D/Q information. Gregory Hood

15. Meteorological Tower Instrumentation Upgrade (P 1) • The current Climatronics/Campbell Scientific system was installed in 1995 • CR-10 & solid state data storage • Still 4-20 ma analog output to plant • The metdata software was re-written to run under windows using Visual Basic and an Access database. Gregory Hood

16. Meteorological Tower Instrumentation Upgrade (P 1) • Towers now determined 15 minute and hourly averaged data. • The strip chart recorders were eliminated and replaced with solid state data storage modules. • This basic metdata software is still being used, today. Gregory Hood

17. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood

18. Meteorological Tower Instrumentation Upgrade (P 2) • 1996 • the data stream from the tower was converted to digital • the PMC was upgraded including implementation of the PI plant data archiving system. • This provided additional data useful in the analysis of met data. • The PI database can be utilized to obtain met data should data be lost from the solid state data storage modules. Gregory Hood

19. WF3 Re-organization • October 1996 • Health Physics transferred effluent and environmental monitoring programs and some personnel (including the met monitoring program) to Chemistry Department. • One on-site person has been primarily involved in dealing with meteorological data since 1989. Gregory Hood

20. Building a High Quality Assessment • Need a pollution meteorologist on the team. • Entergy technicians and specialists don’t have as much expertise • Little exposure to other meteorological monitoring programs • Will base much upon how their site program is run. • Mgmt suggested we find two meteorologists from different companies to be on the assessment team. Gregory Hood

21. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood

22. Building a High Quality Assessment (cont’d) • Thanks to NUMUG, I had a starting point to help me find meteorologists • Due to time crunch, I limited searching for meteorologists to those I was aware of on a short list from the last NUMUG meeting that I attended • Two meteorologists on the team presented some difficulty in keeping costs down • This impacted their time available on-site Gregory Hood

23. Assessment Scope: • Wanted it to cover just about all of the major aspects of the program. • Reviewed guidance documents and references • Also was familiar with the “hard” questions to ask. • 16 Objectives in the Assessment Planning Worksheet Gregory Hood

24. Assessment Report • Guidelines for the content of assessment report provided to the meteorologist team members • Each meteorologist to supply an assessment report • Information from other team members sent to team leader • Used in the creation of the final site assessment report Gregory Hood

25. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood

26. Assessment Outcome/Results • As a result of the limited personnel involvement in the care and upkeep of meteorological data, some elements of the program, such as written procedures, have not been fully developed. • Waterford-3 is doing a lot to ensure that our met data is of good quality. Gregory Hood

27. Assessment Outcome/Results (cont’d) • There are weak areas that can be strengthened to make it an excellent program. • Site management is pleased with the assessment effort. • The train is on the tracks, but the rails could be tightened up a bit. • WF3’s meteorological data has been maintained largely through the efforts of one individual with no spending allocated. • more resources will need to be put into maintaining meteorological data. Gregory Hood

28. Recommendations • Include the Meteorological Monitoring Program in your site’s self-assessment plan or schedule • Get a professional pollution meteorologist or two on the team • Give the team sufficient time on-site to cover your defined scope Gregory Hood

29. Finally… • Expect WF3’s Meteorological Monitoring Program to be the best in the Entergy Nuclear – South fleet. • Expect other ENS plants to look toward WF3, for the model meteorological monitoring program Gregory Hood

30. Waterford 3 Meteorological Monitoring Program Assessment Gregory Hood